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MARYSVILLE, Ohio — The Marysville Division of Police has been housed, in turn, in a former fire
station, a Quonset hut, and, most recently, an outdated and deteriorating former corporate office
building.

So Police Chief Floyd Golden said he cannot overstate how significant it will be when the
police division moves out of downtown on Friday and into a headquarters at the new Marysville
Municipal Court and Police Complex at 1250 W. 5th St.

The $13.1 million building means that, for the first time, officers will work in a place
designed for what they do. Golden said that translates into greater safety for officers, and for
the public, and efficiency for both.

Officers now will have a secure garage in which to drive cruisers to unload prisoners and take
them to a booking area. There’s a real drunk tank and secure holding cells (as opposed to
closet-size rooms that served those purposes in the current building).

Detectives now will have adequate space to store and process evidence, and the dispatching
center has been upgraded with more-efficient equipment. Training rooms and an indoor shooting range
will reduce the costs of outside training, Golden said.

The building has locker rooms, showers and a workout room for the division’s 30 sworn officers
and six dispatchers. And there is a “safe room” just inside the front door for someone looking for
help who might be in danger.

“It gives us so much more space and all the tools we need to do things we’ve never been able to
do before,” said Golden, chief since 2004.

The police will occupy half of the nearly 50,000-square-foot building. The Marysville Municipal
Court gets the other half.

The court will remain downtown until April 11. It is to reopen in the new building on April
17.

Then, for the first time since taking the bench in 2000, Judge Michael Grigsby will have a real
courtroom. In City Hall, his courtroom also serves as a public meeting space and city council
chamber.

There’s no question that the new building is more judicial, with high ceilings and an official
gallery. Plus, there’s security, something that Grigsby’s old court lacked. Metal detectors are at
the complex’s entrances, and his offices and the courtroom itself are secured.

The new fiber-optic network and computer systems please the judge most. “It will help everyone
do their jobs better,” Grigsby said.

Voters raised the city’s income tax to 1.5 percent in 2010 to pay for the police/court building
and a second fire station, which opened last year with a $3.1 million price tag. The police/court
project is on time and on budget. City Administrator Terry Emery gives city Engineer Valerie
Klingman much of the credit.

“It wasn’t always easy, but we got it done, and now everyone in this city has something they can
be proud of,” Emery said.

The current City Hall downtown will remain open, housing other city services such as
engineering, zoning, planning, utilities and the income-tax department, until a separately funded
Municipal Services Complex, also under construction downtown, is finished. That’s expected in
October.

Then, City Hall, which is a former Scotts Co. building, will be torn down.